Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History by Kati Marton

Author:Kati Marton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Presidents' Spouses - United States - Political Activity, History, Married People - United States, Social Science, Presidents & Heads of State, United States - Politics and Government, Presidents, 20th Century, Married People, Presidents - United States, United States, Biography, Power (Social Sciences), Biography & Autobiography, Presidents' Spouses, Power (Social Sciences) - United States, Women's Studies, Political Activity, Women
ISBN: 9780307764225
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2001-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

BETTY, A BORN PERFORMER, loved the role. Like Jacqueline Kennedy, though from another world, she understood the symbolic power of her undefined position. She grasped what Pat Nixon did not: that it wasn’t the number of hands she shook or the letters she personally answered but the image she projected to the country that mattered. So, like Jackie, Betty established who she was in just a handful of appearances and through the canny use of her platform.

She loved to entertain and she loved to party. She quickly transformed the White House into a lively place. Jackie’s small, round tables returned, replacing the Nixons’ long ones. The First Couple were often the last to leave the dance floor after state dinners. Betty did the bump with Tony Orlando and the dignity of the republic was not shattered. The presidential couple stomped to “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” at a state dinner for King Hussein of Jordan, and the country relaxed a bit. The poison of Watergate was oozing out of the nation’s bloodstream.

While President Ford was meeting with the heads of thirty-five nations on the question of security and cooperation in Europe and hammering out the historic Helsinki Accord on Human Rights, Betty’s profile soared to a new level. In August 1975, she sat down with 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer and overnight became the most talked-about woman in America. “I expected a much earthier first lady than any previous ones,” Safer recalled, “but not as earthy as I got. I found an attractive woman who was the first politician I have ever met who absolutely let her guard down. It was a conscious thing with her. This was going to be Betty’s moment. She declared who she was.” Safer did not think Betty had “cleared” her answers with her husband. “The interview liberated all those Republican women who nodded appreciatively at every Neanderthal statement made by the party,” said Safer. “She was not out for self-aggrandizement or self-promotion. Betty Ford said, We’re real people in this house.”

Safer asked all the “hot button” questions first ladies generally evade with puffery. Betty took each one head-on. Infidelity: “He doesn’t have time for outside entertainment. I keep him busy.” Her breakdown: “I was giving too much of myself and not taking any time out for Betty …. I was a little beaten down and he [the psychiatrist] built up my ego.” The secret of their successful marriage: “You go into it, both of you, as a seventy-thirty proposition. In other words, here I’m giving seventy, he can give thirty, he’s giving seventy, I give thirty. When you’re going overboard trying to please each other, you can’t help but be happy.” Abortion: “I feel strongly that it was the best thing in the world when the Supreme Court voted to legalize abortion …. I thought it was a great, great decision.” The possibility that her seventeen-year-old daughter was having an affair: “I wouldn’t be surprised.” Marijuana: “I’m sure they [her children] have all tried it ….

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